This
sentence: "If I had known this I should not have done that" is an outcry
of our internal consciousness, which denies the existence of a free
will.
On the other hand, nothing is created and nothing destroyed either in
matter or in force, because both matter and force are eternal and
indestructible. They transform themselves in the most diversified
manner, but not an atom is added or taken away, not one vibration more
or less takes place. And so if is the force of external and internal
circumstances which determines the decision of our will at any given
moment. The idea of a free will, however, is a denial of the law of
cause and effect, both in the field of philosophy and theology. Saint
Augustine and Martin Luther furnish irrefutable theological arguments
for the denial of a free will. The omnipotence of God is irreconcilable
with the idea of free will. If everything that happens does so because a
superhuman and omnipotent power wants it _(Not a single leaf falls to
the ground without the will of God)_, how can a son murder his father
without the permission and will of God? For this reason Saint Augustine
and Martin Luther have written _de servo arbitrio_.
But since theological arguments serve only those who believe in the
concept of a god, which is not given to us by science, we take recourse
to the laws which we observe in force and matter, and to the law of
causality. If modern science has discovered the universal link which
connects all phenomena through cause and effect, which shows that every
phenomenon is the result of causes which have preceded it; if this is
the law of causality, which is at the very bottom of modern scientific
thought, then it is evident that the admission of free thought is
equivalent to an overthrow of this law, according to which every effect
is proportionate to its cause.
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